White privelege v. 452

[Yppej]

I own several pieces of commercial real estate in town. They have bathrooms in shared hallway spaces that the public could in theory use. When I bought them, against the advice of other property owners in the village, I made the restrooms open and unlocked. That idea lasted about a year. The cost of keeping them clean and useable was insane, and the public treated the restrooms dreadfully.

There is not a single business in our small village with restrooms available to casual users at this point. Every effort to establish one has ended in disaster. The County stepped up to the plate a few years back and build a $250k palace of a public bathroom on our town green, designed to withstand a prison riot. It too is a disaster.

I have seen the opposite trend. Public libraries where you used to have to get a key are now open. I am guessing they want EMTs to be able to get to someone who ODs. There are posters on the walls offering rehab services. I also went to a cemetary restroom within the past year and you could close but not lock the door. There are panhandlers in the area who could probably get the change for a cup of coffee if that were a requirement to use the restroom. It would not prevent them from using it for other than its intended purpose.

[bae]

I suspect one of our problems is that we are infested year-round with tourists/visitors, who may not have much social capital invested in keeping things nice.

[ApatheticNoMore]

You may have never used the N-word in your life, you may hate the K.K.K., but that does not mean that you don’t harbor racism and benefit from racism. After all, you are part of a system that allows you to walk into stores where you are not followed, where you get to go for a bank loan and your skin does not count against you, where you don’t need to engage in “the talk” that black people and people of color must tell their children when they are confronted by white police officers.

what does any of this has to do with *harboring* racism? Absolutely nothing as far as I can tell.

It isn't really benefiting from racism either. Some things might be of limited supply like say jobs or yea loans, so if you get preferential treatment for a job due to whiteness that might be benefiting in some way (it's very hard to prove and so much else factors in but in theory, it is true in some aggregate sense). Since the world is dog eat dog, people will take what advantages they can, oh for the same reason everyone isn't only working moral upstanding jobs but people benefit from selling legal opiates, and making more fattening junk food. And really for the same reason that if he was offered a raise that a coworker (let's say of the same race) wasn't but was equally or more deserving of he would probably *still* accept it.

But not being followed in stores is not limited in supply at all really, I guess he might be arguing there is some social benefit to it though, which is odd because I don't think most people think of it that way, but I guess you could argue that (i.e. there is social benefit to following people in stores, if only blacks are followed whites get some of this benefit without paying the cost of it - some kind of free rider argument I guess ...).

[iris lilies]

what does any of this has to do with *harboring* racism? Absolutely nothing as far as I can tell...?).

Oh thats just the lofty NYT giving us rubes an edifying lecture. They do love to fancy themselves educators. Par for the course.

[LDAHL]

I once remarked to a friend that our worst possible political fate would be rule by the Times’ editorial staff.

She countered that rule by people who post comments on the Times’ site would be even worse.

[bae]

We subscribe to the Times. Their opinion of people like my wife and I is....amazing. We might as well be space aliens to them.

[jp1]

It isn't really benefiting from racism either.

My take, after reading the piece, was that it's not so much "benefiting from racism" as it is "benefiting from not being viewed negatively by someone with a racist perspective". I'll leave it to others to decide if it was just poor/sloppy choice of words by the author or if I'm changing what they intended.

[LDAHL]

My take, after reading the piece, was that it's not so much "benefiting from racism" as it is "benefiting from not being viewed negatively by someone with a racist perspective". I

So the non-enemy of my enemy is my enemy?

[jp1]

So the non-enemy of my enemy is my enemy?

I was thinking more "benefiting from not being the target of the a-hole's ire"

[ApatheticNoMore]

I was thinking more "benefiting from not being the target of the a-hole's ire"

that part I wouldn't even call privilege anymore much less would I call it Being a Racist, just not being a target of an a-hole. That's just what everyone should have.